Women’s Leadership | Everywoman’s Leadership

KEYNOTES, PANELS, WORKSHOPS, PERFORMANCES & INTENSIVES

Friday, October 17

EVE ENSLEREve's RevolutionIntroduction by Nina Simons
Eve Ensler, playwright, performer, activist, award-winning author of The Vagina Monologues and founder of V-Day, illuminates her most recent campaign, One Billion Rising for Justice. It’s a global call to women survivors of violence and those who love them to gather safely in community in public places worldwide to end violence against women, break the silence and release their stories through art, dance, marches, ritual, song and words.

SEVERINE v T FLEMINGMillions of Acres: Young Agrarians NeededIntroduction by Travis Forgues, dairy farmer/board member, Organic Valley
In the next 20 years, farmland ownership will shift on a continental scale—400 million acres, yet 70% of American farmland is owned by people 65 and older. How can we help young, motivated agrarians survive daunting structural obstacles and become successful farmers to whom retiring organic farmers can transmit their wisdom? How can we invest in the democratization of our land base? These questions drive Agrarian Trust, started by by Greenhorns founder Severine v T Fleming, one of the most dynamic leaders in the young farmers’ movement.

Saturday, October 18

NAOMI KLIENThis Changes Everything: Capitalism v. the ClimateIntroduction by Kenny Ausubel
The award-winning Canadian journalist, international activist and best-selling author (The Shock Doctrine, No Logo) depicts climate change as more than an "issue.” It’s a civilizational wake-up call delivered in the language of fires, floods, storms and droughts. It demands that we challenge the dominant economic policies of deregulated capitalism and endless resource extraction. Climate change is also the most powerful weapon in the fight for equality and social justice, and real solutions are emerging from the rubble of our failing systems.

ROBIN KIMMERERMishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of GrassIntroduction by Melissa Nelson, The Cultural Conservancy
Indigenous peoples worldwide honor plants, not only as our sustainers, but as our oldest teachers who share teachings of generosity, creativity, sustainability and joy. By their living examples, plants spur our imaginations of how we might live. By braiding indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with modern tools of botanical science, Robin Kimmerer, professor of Environmental Science and Forestry of Potawatomi ancestry, explores the question: “If plants are our teachers, what are their lessons, and how might we become better students?”

Council. Honoring the Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine: Partnership in Women’s & Men’s Leadership, From the Inside Out
Restoring and honoring the Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine in our lives and communities is necessary to restore harmony with ourselves and with everything else in existence, and it begins in each of us. As the elders have said, nothing is created outside until it is created inside first. Leading from the “inside out” asks us to first embody the change we seek in the world, then what we do will become self-evident. Together, fellow Bioneers will explore the emerging paradigm of balancing the masculine and feminine, why it is important to our existence as human beings, and where it can lead us. How do we work together across the genders to restore a healthy balance between the masculine and feminine, the inner and outer dimensions of life? How do we apply this to our everyday leadership? With Ilarion Merculieff, Aleut traditional messenger; Sharon Shay Sloan, council trainer and community steward. Bioneers of all ages strongly invited to attend. (Double session.) (Interactive, experiential)

Woman and Nature: The Shadow and The Promise
Explore with a multicultural circle of women the upsides and downsides of the deep, ancient association of women and “the feminine” with nature, and how a re-integration of the feminine principle into our culture may best serve us today. Hosted by Starhawk, renowned author, educator, activist, Permaculturist. With:Rachel Bagby, singer, author, farmer, facilitator;Pat McCabe (Woman Stands Shining), Diné (Navajo) artist/activist; Sasha Houston Brown (Dakota/Santee Sioux Tribe, Nebraska), Director of Education at Little Earth of United Tribes; Brandi Mack, who uses permaculture and holistic health approaches in her work with African American girls suffering from trauma; Osprey Orielle Lake, co-founder/Executive Director, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network.

Restorative Justice, Healing Justice
A new form of justice seeks to heal and cares more about broken lives than broken laws. It’s capable of pushing back the "New Jim Crow" of mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline. Hosted by J.Miakoda Taylor, founder, Fierce Allies. With: Fania Davis, founder/Executive Director, Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth; Ericka Huggins, professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Laney and Merritt Colleges.

Performance

Sunday, October 19

KRISTEN SHEERANScaling Solutions for Social ChangeIntroduction by Alisa Gravitz, Green America
In this age of unprecedented global challenges—and innovations—the world can’t wait for solutions to emerge piecemeal over time. We need to get better, faster and more innovative in scaling up existing solutions. Economist Kristen Sheeran illuminates groundbreaking collaborative efforts to create new approaches to social innovation, harnessing cutting-edge digital technologies for the rapid sharing, processing and managing of knowledge. She’s VP of Knowledge Systems at Ecotrust, the Pacific Northwest's groundbreaking think tank and green economy incubator.

PATRICIA GUALINGAMESSAGE FROM THE AMAZON
The courageous Kichwa leader from the Ecuadorian Amazon joins Amazon Watch and Pachamama Alliance with an urgent report from the front lines of protecting the lungs of the planet where women’s leadership is rising.

TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMSA Love That Is Wild: Why Wilderness Matters in the 21st CenturyIntroduction by Nina Simons
What might a different kind of power look and feel like, and can power be redistributed equitably, even beyond our own species? Conservationist, activist, and one of the nation’s most beloved and acclaimed authors, Terry Tempest Williams has been called "a citizen writer" who speaks eloquently for an ethical stance toward life, showing how environmental issues are social issues that become matters of justice. A scholar at the University of Utah and Dartmouth, she has been equally at home camping in the wilderness and being arrested for civil disobedience.

Indigenous Forum. Indigenous Women on the North-South Frontlines of Earth Protection I: The South
(Double session) This indigenous North-South cultural exchange builds bridges and solidarity among North-South indigenous people and their allies. Courageous indigenous leader Patricia Gualinga (Kichwa) from the Ecuadorian Amazon joins Amazon Watch and Pachamama Alliance with an urgent report from the rainforest front lines where indigenous women are stepping into leadership to defend the rights of Mother Earth (Pachamama) and their peoples, and to protect the Amazon from oil concessions.

INTENSIVES

Pre-Conference

In this full-day, hands-on workshop/immersion in Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), we explore plants as teachers and the science and philosophy of diverse indigenous foodways and ethnobotanical traditions, including: “Three Sisters” Agriculture, Pueblo farming, organic gardening and California Indian land management practices. We will harvest, collect seeds, and eat together from our Three Sisters Garden as an embodiment of botanical and social polyculture.

This historic workshop features a world-class line-up:

Robin Kimmerer (Potawatomie): scientist, award-winning writer (Braiding Sweetgrass; Gathering Moss), Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at NY’s SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and founding Director of its Center for Native Peoples and the Environment for reconciling indigenous and Western science.

Post-Conference

Groundbreaking women in leadership (and some men) in finance, business, policy, and culture are creating Feminomics: new economic models and visions that take into account the biosphere, health and justice to help shift us toward a life-affirming, just economy and world. These new economic models apply a gender lens, whole systems thinking, nature's models, indigenous traditions and place a value on the wellbeing of people and the planet.

Intended for practitioners, professionals and anyone interested in re-imagining economics, this one-day intensive features leading-edge innovators and practitioners in investment, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, justice, and policy. They will highlight some of the most promising practices, models and visions. After brief presentations from diverse leaders, we will engage in networking sessions and round-table “collaboratories” to work together on principles and models, connecting our disparate communities to accelerate learning, cross-pollination, connection and mutual support.